Everdell Newleaf: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Worker Placement, Engine Builder
Player Age: 10+ Player Count: 1 - 4 Players Time to Play: 40 - 100 Minutes
Game Designer: James. A. Wilson
Game Artist: Andrew Bosley, Natalie Johnson, Naomi RobinsonPublisher: Starling GamesYear Published: 2022BGG Weight: 2.83
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Player Age: 10+
Game Designer: James. A. Wilson
Game Artist: Andrew Bosley, Natalie Johnson, Naomi Robinson
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Objective:
Everdell has expanded with a new board focusing on the bustling growth that comes with Everdell gaining a train station. This includes new cards for the main deck, new critters, new features in the form of modules, and a new end of game scoring system in the form of visitors.
The Train Station:
As Everdell city grows, as do the utilities that become available. In this expansion, the Newleaf train station has bustled into the town on a side addition to the main Everdell board.
Station Cards:
The meadow has been expanded with three new spots on the station board. These cards work like the standard meadow rules (effects that interact with the meadow do not interact with these cards) with one addition, if you play any of these cards straight into your city you get the bonus in the train car to the right of it then discard the car. When the station card spot is refreshed the train car is also refreshed.
Worker Spots:
Two new work spots join this board where both of these locations allow one worker per player at a time. The Knoll location refreshes the card pool by discarding 3 cards from the meadow or station (replenishing the cards), then drawing 3 cards for either spot and then gaining 1 train car tile.
The Station location discards 1 visitor from the available visitors and then gains 1 visitor and train car tile.
Visitors:
Visitors are new card types that gives the player additional end of game scoring possibilities. They have a certain requirement that the player must meet at the end of the game and then they will gain coins equal to the amount displayed. These help the players focus on ways to build their city early on or give a new chance at scoring in the end.
Added Content:
Content has been added with new constructions, critters, special events and forest cards all adding further variability.
All the critters and constructions added no longer have a certain combination between the cards, instead, each critter and construction has their own range of construction they can live in or critter that can live there. This could be any common or unique card, or specific to the type of card such as green production or tan traveller. This is a good way to gain cards without having to pay a costly resource to play them. The catch is that each player only has three golden occupied tokens they can use in a game and these new cards use these golden tokens (indicated by their golden banner).
Due to the high volume of main deck cards added to the game in this expansion. It is recommended that you remove any special events in the base game that refers to specific cards in the deck. This is easily remedied by the addition of the new special events.
New Critters:
Four new critters are added in this expansion, snails, bats, cats and honey bees. All these critters are backwards compatible with all the other expansions.
The snails can activate a green card when an opponent plays it, with the cost of giving that opponent a card from a designated stack of 7. The bats essentially create a second hand that is built through adding cards to their city.
The cats can send their workers to certain locations already occupied by an opposing worker. The honey bees can activate a green in their city as long as they play a non-green card into their city and discard a card.
New Events:
Two new events are added to the game; the Big City that benefits the player that fills their city with 15 cards, and the Scenic Flight which rewards the player that has 3 purple prosperity cards built.
Reservation Tokens:
This is an optional module that can be used even when playing with other expansions. You now have a new action available on your turn which is to reserve a card. Take any card from the meadow or station and place it face-up underneath your reservation token. This token is now reserving that card, making it cost one less resource. After the card had been built the token will flip over and won't be refreshed until the player prepares for the next season.
Tickets:
This ticket allows movement of one of your workers on your turn to a new location. When the worker moves to the new location it will activate the new spot. The outbound ticket can be used from winter to the end of the game, where once used it will flip to an inbound ticket and has to be used after the summer season. Once both sides are used the ticket is discarded from the game. This cannot be used on a big critter, frog ambassador or any worker on a permanent location.
Final Thoughts:
- Includes content for every kind of player and allows the players to add any content they enjoy in a module-based nature or to just use all the content.
- Reservation token is extremely useful as the available cards in the meadow often shift and change at a very frequent pace so it gives players an opportunity if they cannot afford the card immediately.
- The ticket is a great way to extend your seasons as it is effectively two extra worker turns.
- Visitors help players plan ahead or get in a few sneaky points at the end of the game.
- Station board adds more cards for players to work with and also a new opportunity to refresh the meadow while gaining cards.
For me, this is an essential expansion. Everdell is already a large game with plenty of decision space for players and I found that Spirecrest and Pearlbrook are great expansions but make the game much larger with a wider decision space. Newleaf, like Bellfaire, adds enough content without increasing the game's weight. This is an expansion I would gladly add in every time as there are now more scoring opportunities, more types of actions (reservation and ticket) that players can do on their turn, and more cards available at a given time with an added bonus for building the cards. If you are a fan of Everdell and like the original weight of the game but want more content then this is an expansion I can easily recommend.
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